Elementary school soccer whiz Rakuichi Nagahama drew national attention a few years back with his IMPRESSIVE athletic skills. After disappearing to Italy for three years, Rakuichi reluctantly returns to the remote town where he grew up. The local high school soccer team can’t wait to get their hands on the prodigy, despite the fact that he was obviously a FAILURE in Italy. But Rakuichi’s not sure he’s ready to get back on the field. Sure, his best friend from elementary school (now a hot babe) can’t wait to see him play again…and his childhood rivals are eager to have another go against him…and the entire school is counting on him…but how can Rakuichi live up to their expectations when he’s sworn off the sport for good?

Well... I was convinced to read it cause of mangafox's description. "Great artwork, hilarious comedy"? The hell? I'll say as much as the art is unique and isn't too bad, but it certainly isn't great. Far from that. Worst off, I didn't find the manga funny at all. I don't know how it's supposed to be a comedy, other than the characters are a joke. And yes, in the bad way.

Honestly, I'm in a bad mood. That's the 3rd manga in a row that I wouldn't say suck but annoying and boring. Characters are shallow, story is ruined by the character's annoyance, and the art... isn't good enough to be of concern while the rest of it is completely capable of ruining my mood. I thought the main was interesting at first, but he's too shallow and indecisive. How come he ended up giving up so fast to the people around him?

In any case, this manga is not worth reading. I see average as two kinds: run-of-the-mill, and mangas that you can't say it sucks... but it's boring, annoying, and yea, sucks.

The only good part of the art in this are the covers.Everything else is quite bad, which is really unfortunate, because there is promise in Ryuuji Gotsubo's style.Sadly, the promises never realized themselves in this serie. Probably the worst part of it all is how the sport is handled.

This manga is SOOO good...I don't know if someoney3000 is reading the same manga or what, because this manga is one of the better random humor mangas! The art is cool and the storyline is amusing...what more could you want? Also, I think this manga is s'posed to be not "philosophical" because this story is all about humor and about making fun of stuff...*sighers* This manga is so much better than FLCL and those mangas, in my opinion(I list FLCL and those types of manga under the same genre as Sasameke) ^__^

If I have to be honest, then I believe that Sasameke is extremely shallow. At first it appeared to be a philosophical discussion on motivation, but inevitably it falls under simple and unenjoyable comedy. Fine. It would have been fine if it was just unenjoyable comedy. But then you come in contact with the characters, who are so absurdly "cool" or "awesome" that what resembles a plot disintegrates. The manga's plot degrades to showing off how cool other characters are and bashing the main character for being "emo." Niice. Some may enjoy this but for me, it's terrible. It is rather early to judge though. One volume is hardly a lot, so maybe there is still hope...?

i have never seen an art style like this, so i was very impressed. the story is great and characters are pretty solid. its just that the manga does something that most people want, its not easy to predict. as for i dont really like that, it ruins the "coolness" part in the manga. but very funny and good manga